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Book 2, Chapter 3
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Social Contract, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Human Freedom and Society
Sovereignty, Citizenship, and Direct Democracy
Government and the Separation of Powers
National Longevity and Moral Virtue
Summary
Analysis
In order to fulfill the general will and preserve itself, the sovereign needs some system to organize and control its different parts and resources. But it cannot do anything it wants with citizens, since they retain their own individual rights, and so they cannot be forced to do anything that “is not necessary to the community.” By its nature, the sovereign works for everyone because it includes everyone—but on the flipside, this means it cannot reasonably weigh private interests against the public interest in situations not covered by existing law.
By emphasizing why the sovereign cannot trample on citizens’ rights, Rousseau reaffirms the principle that individuals are actually more free in a society than they would be on their own. He also points out an inherent paradox in the nature of the sovereign: while its only purpose is to follow the general will, it can only fulfill this will by taking particular acts that would force it to break its vow of impartiality. This is why Rousseau believes a separate executive branch (or government) is necessary, as he will soon explain.
Themes
Rousseau reiterates that all citizens are fundamentally equal, because “they all pledge themselves [to the sovereign] under the same conditions and must all enjoy the same rights.” Sovereignty, then, “is not a covenant between a superior and inferior,” but rather one “of the body with each of its members.” The sovereign power cannot exceed the limits of these covenants by violating citizens’ rights or arbitrarily burdening them with unequal obligations. As a result, people do not lose anything by joining society; it actually improves their situation by giving them security, freedom, and inviolable rights, which are preferable to living under a kind of eternal war in the state of nature.
Because all citizens owe their freedom to the sovereign and the sovereign owes its existence to the people that make it up, the sovereign cannot violate citizen’s rights, since that would mean undermining its own freedom. Such a violation would therefore be illogical for the same reason that people cannot sign up to be slaves: it is incoherent for to ever willingly reduce their own freedom. After all, this inherent freedom is the reason people are equal under the sovereign in the first place, because it is the common condition for their participation in society.
Themes
